1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to data processing, and more specifically, to a data processing system having peripheral-paced DMA transfer and method therefor.
2. Related Art
Direct memory access (DMA) data transfers are commonly used in data processing systems to transfer data from various modules in the data processing system with minimal processor involvement. In a typical DMA transfer between, for example, a peripheral module and a memory, initiation of the transfer may be controlled by the peripheral. When the peripheral module initiates the DMA transfer, the DMA transfer is said to be peripheral-paced. Upon completion of the transfer, the DMA controller typically generates a DMA interrupt to the processor. In the resulting DMA interrupt service routine, control is passed to a peripheral interrupt service routine that finishes any required processing. Executing the interrupt service routine can be complex and time consuming. As popularity of DMA data transfers migrates into lower-end devices having an increasing number of peripherals, efficient handling of peripheral-paced DMA tasks becomes a larger issue for system performance.
Therefore, what is needed is a more efficient mechanism for handling the completion of DMA tasks.